Traffic police, highway patrol and other mobile security personnel have a need to accurately and efficiently identify potential law enforcement problems with respect to nearby motor vehicles. One well-recognized strategy is to “run” license plate numbers of such vehicles against a database.
It is a well known practice for an officer in a patrol car to visually read a license plate of a target vehicle, and then call in the number to a support center. It is also known for an officer to utilize an on-board digital video camera to capture an image of the vehicle license plate of a parked vehicle, and even to use an on-board computer to analyze the image to determine the license plate number. In both cases, however, conscious effort is required on the part of the officer, which diverts attention from driving or other activities. In some cases the diversion of attention can be dangerous, and can even contribute to an otherwise preventable car accident.
A highly advanced license plate recognition and checking system is described in Japanese patent 11-296785, published on Oct. 29, 1999, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. In that system the patrol car is provided with an on-board camera and camera controller, optical character recognition (OCR) software, a database, and a display device. While moving along a road, the driver places the patrol car in front of or behind the target car, and then triggers operation of the camera. The camera photographs the license plate of a preceding or following target vehicle, and sends the captured image to the on-board computer. OCR software running on the computer determines the license plate number, and applies that number against the on-board database. The results are displayed to the operator.
Apparently, the inventors of Japanese patent 11-296785 did not appreciate that (a) forcing the driver of the patrol car to maneuver his vehicle relative to the target vehicle, and (b) forcing the operator to trigger the camera, involve conscious efforts on the part of the driver, which preclude the system from operating in a truly autonomous fashion. The issue of being fully autonomous is not a mere design choice. Fully autonomous operation is not only safer and more thorough, it also has a particularly important function in countering accusations of racial profiling. If a system could be devised that would autonomously process license plate information of all vehicles in view of the camera, including vehicles in other lanes, then the operator could not be reasonably accused of focusing on any particular car or driver.
Thus, there is still a need for more fully autonomous surveillance of moving automotive vehicles from another moving vehicle.